Eileen Fulton, the iconic soap star best known for playing the scheming Lisa Grimaldi on CBS’s “As the World Turns” for fifty years, passed away on July 14 in Asheville, North Carolina, after a period of declining health. She was 91.
Born Margaret Elizabeth McLarty on September 13, 1933, in Asheville, Fulton was the daughter of a Methodist minister and a public school teacher. Her family frequently relocated as a result of her father’s ministry. Fulton once shared that her first performance happened at age two when, during a church service, she leaped from her mother’s lap and sang “Mama’s little baby loves shortening bread.” She told CBS News in 1998, “They couldn’t quiet me then, and they haven’t managed to since.”
Fulton attended Greensboro College where she studied drama and music before heading to New York City in 1956 to chase her acting ambitions. She studied under influential teachers Sanford Meisner and Lee Strasberg at the Neighborhood Playhouse, with classmates like Keir Dullea. After adopting the stage name Eileen Fulton, she supported herself through modeling until she landed her breakthrough part.
In 1960, Fulton was cast as Lisa Miller on “As the World Turns,” a role initially intended as a short, three-month summer storyline featuring a sweet, likable character. The part was first offered to Lois Smith, who was unavailable. Fulton chose to reinvent Lisa, using her observations from her father’s congregation to craft a much more cunning persona that would keep viewers enthralled for decades.
Fulton told NPR in 2010 that she consciously transformed the role, relying on her experience as a minister’s daughter and her fascination with members of her father’s church. She decided Lisa needed a richer background and deeper motivations, so while delivering the script’s lines, she infused them with her own interpretation of the character’s past and desires.
Lisa became one of the first “bad girls” in daytime TV, marrying eight times on the show. Her husbands included characters played by actors like Nicolas Coster, who portrayed two different spouses. By the time the series ended, Lisa’s full name had grown to Lisa Miller Hughes Eldridge Shea Colman McColl Mitchell Grimaldi Chedwyn. Of her marriages, three ended in divorce, four by death, and one was annulled.
Fulton’s portrayal stirred strong reactions from viewers, both favorable and critical. She was among the first soap stars to hire a publicist and even employed a bodyguard for protection after some fans reacted violently to Lisa’s behavior. In one memorable instance, she recalled a well-dressed woman recognizing her outside Lord & Taylor, expressing hatred for Lisa, and hitting her.
In the 1970s, Fulton negotiated a special contract clause to ensure Lisa would never be written as a grandmother, believing such roles lacked romance at that time. This stipulation was eventually dropped. In the early 1960s, while “As the World Turns” aired live, Fulton juggled a demanding schedule, appearing on the soap in the mornings, performing in matinees of “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” on Broadway, and starring in “The Fantasticks” off-Broadway in the evenings.
Fulton left “As the World Turns” three times during her career. Her first departure came in 1963 to pursue other stage work—including an off-Broadway role opposite Hal Holbrook in “Abe Lincoln in Illinois”—but she returned when her replacement, Pamela King, didn’t resonate with viewers. She left again in 1965 to headline the primetime spinoff “Our Private World,” which aired on CBS but was canceled after four months. A third exit occurred in 1983 due to a contract dispute, but she rejoined the show when she learned writers were considering writing Lisa off entirely.
Fulton was also a prolific author, co-writing two memoirs—”How My World Turns” in 1970 and “As My World Still Turns” in 1995—along with several murder mystery novels and a book titled “Soap Opera.” She performed cabaret shows in New York and Los Angeles and also launched a clothing line with J.C. Penney.
Her contributions to daytime television earned her major accolades. Fulton was inducted into the Soap Opera Hall of Fame in 1998 and received a Daytime Emmy Lifetime Achievement Award in 2004. She received a single Emmy nomination in 1988 and won a Soap Opera Digest Award for her portrayal of Lisa Grimaldi in 1991.
When CBS announced in 2010 that “As the World Turns” would conclude after 54 seasons, Fulton said she was stunned, likening the cancellation to losing a parent. The final episode aired September 17, 2010, ending her nearly half-century run on the show. She retired in 2019 and settled in Black Mountain, North Carolina.
Fulton is survived by her brother Charles Furman McLarty, her niece Katherine Morris and their children, and her sister-in-law Chris Page McLarty. In contrast to her character’s long marital history, Fulton was married and divorced three times herself.
